The N.C. Senate voted 35-14 on Tuesday to cut corporate and personal income tax cuts, with all Democrats opposing the measure.

The N.C. Senate voted 35-14 on Tuesday to cut corporate and personal income-tax rates, with all Democrats opposing the measure.
Senate Bill 325, titled “Billion Dollar Middle Class Tax Cut,” is expected to get a final vote on Wednesday and head to the House, where Republicans have proposed a less sweeping package of tax cuts.
The Senate plan would reduce the personal income-tax rate from 5.499 percent to 5.35 percent while increasing the standard deduction from $17,500 to $20,000 for a married couple filing jointly, with similar increases for other tax-status categories. Because

a married couple making less than $20,000 wouldn’t owe any income taxes, the Senate estimates the change would take 94,000 families off the tax rolls.

“Under this plan, 99 percent of taxpayers would pay less or pay no state personal income taxes – and the bulk of the tax cut would benefit middle class and working families earning less than $50,000 per year,” Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release after the vote. “Our previous tax cuts led to a booming North Carolina economy and helped generate 500,000 new jobs, and we hope Gov. Cooper will enthusiastically support this billion dollar middle class tax cut.”
Source: Personal, corporate income tax cut passes NC Senate along party lines | News & Observer
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article142700294.html#storylink=cpy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid the turmoil over staff shake-ups, blocked travel bans and the Russia cloud hanging overhead, President Donald Trump is steadily plugging away at a major piece of his agenda: Undoing Obama.

From abortion to energy to climate change and personal investments, Trump is keeping his promises in methodically overturning regulations and policies adopted when Barack Obama was president.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing.

Trump recently failed to fulfill his pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which continues to stand as Obama’s most recognizable domestic policy achievement. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan couldn’t persuade enough fellow Republicans to back new health care legislation last month. Ryan pulled the measure just before a scheduled House vote.

Trump has had better outcomes in other areas.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Trump signed an executive order last week to deliver on his pledge to unravel Obama’s efforts to curb global warming. The order launched a review of the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s chief effort to curb carbon emissions by restricting greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. Trump also lifted a 14-month-old halt on new coal leases on federal lands. The Obama administration had imposed a three-year freeze on such leases in January of last year.

The executive order covers a range of other Obama-era rules, including requirements to factor the “social cost” of carbon emissions into all regulatory actions and to crack down on methane emissions at oil and gas wells. Business groups had complained to Trump, himself a businessman, that the rules were intrusive and expensive.

INTERNET PRIVACY

Trump is expected to sign a measure soon to block online privacy regulations the Federal Communications Commission issued during Obama’s final months in office. It’s a first step toward allowing internet providers to sell information about their customers’ browsing habits. The FCC rule was designed to give consumers more control over how companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon share information. Critics complained that the rule would have increased costs, stifled innovation and picked winners and losers among internet companies.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer says the rule represents the type of “federal overreach” that Trump pledged as a candidate to reverse.

ABORTION/FAMILY PLANNING

Trump is expected to sign legislation erasing another Obama rule, one that barred states from withholding federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other clinics that provide abortions. The rule was finalized shortly before Obama left office in January.

The measure cleared the Senate last week with Vice President Mike Pence, who is also president of the Senate, casting the tie-breaking 51st vote in the 100-member chamber.

KEYSTONE XL OIL PIPELINE

Trump greenlighted the long-delayed project on March 24, reversing Obama’s decision less than 18 months earlier. After Trump invited TransCanada, the Canadian company building the $8 billion pipeline, to resubmit its application, the State Department approved the project, saying it would advance U.S. national interests. Obama had said the project would not.

Approval came nearly a decade after TransCanada applied to complete the 1,700-mile (2,735 kilometers) pipeline to carry oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Trump says the project will reduce costs and reliance on foreign oil, and create thousands of jobs. Obama had said it would undercut U.S. credibility in international efforts to tackle climate change.

DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE

Under Obama, the Army Corps of Engineers had declined in December to allow pipeline construction under South Dakota’s Lake Oahe on grounds that alternate routes needed to be considered. Native American tribes had sued to block construction, arguing that the pipeline threatened their water supply and cultural sites.

The project has moved forward again under Trump, who acted shortly after taking office. In February, the Army Corps of Engineers abandoned further study and granted an easement that was needed to complete the pipeline. Energy Transfer Partners immediately began drilling under the lake.

FUEL EFFICIENCY STANDARDS

The Trump administration is re-examining federal requirements governing the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks. In 2012, the Obama administration set fuel economy regulations for model years 2017-2025 and agreed to complete a midterm evaluation by next year. Then, days before Obama left office, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to keep stringent requirements it had set in place for model years 2022-2025.

The auto industry balked. Trump announced in Michigan that he’s putting the midterm review back on track. His decision has no immediate effect but requires the EPA to determine no later than April 2018 whether the 2022-2025 standards are appropriate.

TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

Obama was his administration’s biggest cheerleader for the sweeping agreement involving the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. But the Senate needed to ratify it, and bipartisan opposition basically doomed it before he left office.

As a candidate, Trump railed against this agreement and pledged to withdraw from it, saying he was a better negotiator and could strike better deals. Shortly after taking office, he directed the U.S. trade representative to withdraw and said he would pursue individual deals with the other countries.

ABORTION/MEXICO CITY POLICY

Trump reinstated a ban on providing federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information about them. Obama had lifted the ban when he took office in 2009.

Known as the “Mexico City Policy” or, by critics, as the “global gag rule,” the regulation has been a political volleyball, instituted by Republican administrations and rescinded by Democratic ones since 1984. Trump signed it one day after the 44th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States. The policy also prohibits taxpayer funding for groups that lobby to legalize abortion or promote it as a family planning method.

PERSONAL FINANCE

Trump has instructed the Department of Labor to delay an Obama-era rule that would require financial professionals who charge commissions to put their clients’ best interests first when advising them on retirement investments. The “fiduciary rule” was aimed at blocking consultants from steering clients toward investments with higher commissions and fees that can eat away at retirement savings. The rule was to take effect this month. The financial services industry argued that the rule would limit retirees’ investment choices by forcing asset managers to steer them to low-risk options.

Undoing the rule was part of a promised assault by Trump on banking rules enacted after the Great Recession. He has directed the Treasury secretary to review the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law, which he has said is a disaster. The law’s aim was to keep banks from repeating practices that many blamed for the financial meltdown.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency, targeting the way officials use science to develop new regulations.

A bill approved Wednesday by the GOP-controlled House would require that data used to support new regulations to protect human health and the environment be released to the public.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said “the days of ‘trust me’ science are over,” adding that the House bill would restore confidence in the EPA’s decision-making process.

Connecticut Rep. Elizabeth Esty and other Democrats said the bill would cripple EPA’s ability to conduct scientific research based on confidential medical information and risks privacy violations by exposing sensitive patient data.

RALEIGH ­— The state Senate has given its approval to a proposed constitutional amendment capping the income tax rate at 5.5 percent, but one lawmaker has a better idea.
Applying some fiscal restraint, said Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, could eliminate the urge to increase tax rates in the first place.
Tillman is one of the bill’s primary sponsors and co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
“If you will prepare for hard times and not spend it all like our predecessors have, you’ll be fine to weather bad times,” Tillman said. “Bad times will come. You cycle about every eight to 10 years into good times and bad times.”
The current cap on the tax is 10 percent.

Senate Bill 75 got support from nearly all Senate Republicans and even a couple Democrats. It passed by a 36-13 vote, six votes more than the minimum 30 needed to move a constitutional amendment forward.
Roy Cordato, an economist and vice president for research at the John Locke Foundation, said he generally approves of capping taxes everywhere.
“On principle, I think that’s a good idea,” Cordato said. “My concern is that this is being used and promoted as a way of expanding the base and maybe even ultimately raising the rate of the sales tax.”
Cordato said he’d prefer to see the constitutional cap expanded to cover the sales tax rate, too .
“I don’t know what it should be on the sales tax, but I’d think no higher than what it is now,” Cordato said. “Make it about the issue of over-taxation generally and not just over-taxation with the income tax.”
Tillman said states that have a hard time with constitutional income tax caps also probably fail to curtail spending, Tillman said.
“If you run away with spending and then hard times hit you, you’ve got no cushion, no reserve, then you have to go to sales tax,” Tillman said. The General Assembly has built up reserves, beefing up the rainy day fund, the unemployment fund and Medicaid reserves, he said.
Donald Bryson, state director of Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina, thinks otherwise. He applauded Senate passage and urged the House to follow suit.
“This bill will protect individuals and families currently paying North Carolina’s lowest tax rate in decades from lawmakers who only see spending increases and tax hikes,” Bryson said.
The potential effect on the state’s credit rating is another aspect lawmakers should consider.
“I believe that this bill puts our triple-A bond rating at risk,” Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, said. “It hamstrings our state’s ability to increase revenue.” He said having to depend on a sales tax means relying on a regressive tax. A lowering of the credit rating could result in higher interest rates for future bonds.
Two Democrats, Sens. Ben Clark of Hoke County and Joel Ford of Mecklenburg County, joined 34 Republicans in supporting the measure. One Republican, Sen. Tamara Barringer of Wake County, voted against it.

North Carolina, PoliticsComments Off on Key Senate Leader: ‘Sufficient’ Responses Received On Trump Wiretap Claim

Mar142017

President Trump, Senator Burr (R-NC)

Although the Department of Justice has asked for more time to respond to a House request for evidence related to President Donald Trump’s claim he was wiretapped during his presidential campaign, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he has received “sufficient” responses about the accusation. “I’ve talked to all the appropriate people,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.

“I would say from our conversations, what we’ve gotten are sufficient answers,”

he added. Although the House Intelligence Committee had imposed a Monday deadline, Burr noted that, “The House operates differently than I do.”Burr said associates of Trump supporter Roger Stone could be brought before the committee due to Stone’s connections with a hacker known only as “Guccifer 2.0” who has claimed credit for hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee.